YouTube discovery of the day: Premakes

These sensational examples of great video editing have been around for awhile, but so have I and I just discovered them myself, so I had to share them.

If, like me, you'd never heard of film editor Ivan Guerrero or "premakes," they're definitely worth checking out. For his creations, Guerrero takes clips from old films and, well, makes them into trailers of modern movies if they had been made in the 1950s or early '60s.

No words can really describe them, so I've included three here, starting with his newest creation, the "premake" trailer for Disney/Pixar's "Up!", now starring Spencer Tracy and Kirk Douglas. Also included are "Ghostbusters" with Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin and Fred MacMurray, and finally "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which canibalizes Nazi-era footage from "Casablanca" and all kinds of other old movies for a wild mix. Enjoy, check out Guerrero's YouTube channel here, and stick around for something exciting from Sundance that hits YouTube tonight.







Finally today, director Kevin McDonald ("The Last King of Scotland" and others) and producer Ridley Scott have teamed up with contributors from around the world to create "Life in a Day," which, if I have this right, will premiere tonight at 8 p.m. EST at the Sundance Film Festival and, at the same time, also makes its streaming debut on YouTube.

Nothing but unquestionably cool there, and here's what the movie is about. McDonald had folks from around the globe send videos of exactly what the title says, a day in their lives. He edited it all together for what should make for one fascinating documentary. You can watch it streaming here tonight. Here's a clip from the movie featuring contributor Ron, who clearly isn't having the greatest of days. Enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Thursday. Peace out.

Two crazy rumors, one to laugh about and one to hope for

You know, I would suggest someone try to shame The Sun if it had even an ounce of it left, or the folks who put it out just clearly didn't have so much fun f***ing with the entire world.

The British's tabloid's latest creation, as I've dutifully documented above by sharing the photo, is the immediately shot down but still very funny rumor that one Robert Pattinson would be playing Kurt Cobain in a biopic to be titled "All Apologies." And, as you might be able to tell, that's Scarlett Johansson in the photo as Courtney Love, who Love has supposedly and rather immodestly suggested should play her.

All I can really say about all that is great title, and I'd imagine that last bit about Courtney Love is probably the only thing approaching truth in it. But it's still just a heck of a lot of fun.

And, in a rumor that I would much more readily get behind, the co-creators of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" - which along with "Coraline" shares the distinction of being one of the two 2009 animated movies that were better than Pixar's "Up" - are eyeing a sequel in the form of "Pickles to Pittsburgh," the soon-to-be-released followup children's book by Judith Barrett.

In the new work, according to Publisher's Weekly, the townspeople of Chewandswallow find themselves still cleaning up all that food rained down by Bill Hader's Flint Lockwood. In what should make for a globe-trotting adventure, they come up with a global food distribution plan, hence Eggplants to Ecuador, Chili to Chile and the titular "Pickles to Pittsburgh."

I'm laughing at that already, so here's hoping this somehow happens, and soon. And in the meantime, Comedy Central has released a short clip of next week's episode of "South Park," which will be the rather seriously amazing 200th one. Never strangers to excess, as you'll see from the clip, co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are bringing back every celebrity who has been mercilessly mocked during the show's run for a class-action lawsuit against the city. Nothing but funny there, especially the return of Mecha Streisand. Enjoy, and have a fantastic rest of the weekend.

Just what in the world is "Secret of the Kells," and what will Jason Reitman do next?

Although the Oscar nominations always leave me with as many questions as answers, this was the biggest one I had after yesterday's nominations announcement.

After all, I just assumed that, after a truly banner year for animation, one of my favorites - "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" - would get a nomination, especially since the field grew to five entries this year. Instead, it went to something called "Secret of the Kells," and I can't be the only person who had never heard of that before yesterday.

So, what in the world is it? Well, an animated movie, obviously, from co-directors Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey. As you'll see from the fairly long trailer below (and, even though it labels the movie "Brendan and the Secret of the Kells," I assure it's genuine), it's animated in a charmingly simple style. As far as the story, here's an official synopsis:

In the movie “The Secret Of Kells,” young Brendan lives in a remote medieval outpost under siege from barbarian raids. But a new life of adventure beckons when a celebrated master illuminator arrives from foreign lands carrying an ancient but unfinished book, brimming with secret wisdom and powers. To help complete the magical book, Brendan has to overcome his deepest fears on a dangerous quest that takes him into the enchanted forest where mythical creatures hide. It is here that he meets the fairy Aisling, a mysterious young wolf-girl, who helps him along the way. But with the barbarians closing in, will Brendan’s determination and artistic vision illuminate the darkness and show that enlightenment is the best fortification against evil?

Sounds like slightly heavy stuff for a children's animated movie, but as you see from the clip below, it will be pretty fun too. Enjoy.



And when will we get to see this? I'd have to imagine that, even with the Oscar love, this will be an arthouse release in the U.S.A., meaning I'll have to drive to Atlanta when it comes out March 10.

As for the rest of the Oscars, I'd have to say the 10 movie field for Best Picture was certainly a success, especially if the goal was to recognize some box office smashes along with the usual suspects. I haven't seen "The Blind Side," but is it really Best Picture material? I doubt it, but that along with "Up," "Avatar" and "District 9" should at least stop the ratings slide.

As for things that made me smile, certainly the fact that Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," my favorite, got eight nominations (second only to the nine nabbed by both "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker"), including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and of course, Best Supporting Actor for Christoph Waltz (one way to make the interminable broadcast shorter would be to just give him and Mo'Nique their statues now.)

There a few other little things I liked, too. The single best nomination would have to be Armando Iannucci and crew for Best Adapted Screenplay for "In the Loop." That was easily the wittiest movie of the year, and any script that moves that fast without ever faltering certainly deserves the recognition. It was also nice to see Maggie Gyllenhaal get a Best Supporting Actress Nomination for her work in "Crazy Heart." The Dude seems to be the favorite for Best Actor for his role in that flick about an aging country music star of sorts, but you wouldn't care a lick about his character if he didn't have Gyllenhaal's journalist and single mother to play off of and pitch woo at. Huzzah to both of those.

And though it has seemed to be losing steam over the weeks (I tried to see it a second time, but it had already disappeared from theaters), that "Up in the Air" only got six nominations is a bit of a surprise. It did, however, get all the big ones: nominations for all three actors, adapted screenplay, director and Best Picture.

Which brings us to the next topic: What will Jason Reitman do now? Well, according to The Playlist, he let that cat out of the bag in a visit with Roger Ebert. Here, according to The Playlist, is what he had to say:

"The book I'm adapting is 'Labor Day' by Joyce Maynard. I re-read it over the weekend and when I finished the book [on] Monday morning, I was kind of on the verge of tears and I remembered at the moment, 'alright, my job is to make sure the audience feel exactly what I'm feeling right now.' And that's it, thats the gig. The test is with each film, 'can I do that?' and 'is that something the audience wants to feel at the end of the day?' And in this case, I think it is. This ones a very very tricky love story. It's very dramatic."

"I know what actors I want for it. I'll be able to go to them easily and, presumably, it'll be an easier greenlight than my first movie. Or my second movie."

Fair enough, but what in the world is "Labor Day," which I will now be reading soon, about? Here, with some editing, is what it says on Maynard's own Web site:

With the end of summer closing in and a steamy Labor Day weekend looming in the town of Holton Mills, New Hampshire, 13-year-old Henry - lonely, friendless, not too good at sports - spends most of his time watching television, reading, and daydreaming about the soft skin and budding bodies of his female classmates. For company Henry has his long-divorced mother, Adele, a onetime dancer whose summer project was to teach him how to foxtrot; his hamster, Joe; and awkward Saturday-night outings to Friendly's with his estranged father and new stepfamily. As much as he tries, Henry knows that even with his jokes and his "Husband for a Day" coupon, he still can't make his emotionally fragile mother happy. Adele has a secret that makes it hard for her to leave their house, and seems to possess an irreparably broken heart.

But all that changes on the Thursday before Labor Day, when a mysterious bleeding man named Frank approaches Henry and asks for a hand. Over the next five days, Henry will learn some of life's most valuable lessons: how to throw a baseball, the secret to perfect piecrust, the breathless pain of jealousy, the power of betrayal, and the importance of putting others - especially those we love - above ourselves. And the knowledge that real love is worth waiting for.

That all sounds great to me. There's nothing up about this yet on the IMDB, but I'd imagine that as he rather immodestly claims, he can indeed get this greenlit just about whenever he wants to. And, since I'm so enamored of my new laptop, I might just make "Labor Day" the first purchase to read with my new "Kindle for PC" thingie from Amazon.

Except for that, all I have today is a music video from a woman I had never heard of, but since it's directed by Michel Gondry, it's certainly worth a look. The video is for a song called "Open Your Heart" by a chica named Mia Doi Todd. As the title implies, it's a breezy little ditty, and Gondry uses flashes of color in a deceptively simple way that becomes genuinely hypnotic (hyperbole? Perhaps, but that's the effect it had on me at 6:30 in the morning.) Anyways, enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Wednesday. Peace out.

Oscar's big gambit: Power to the people?

Before we get into this madness with the expanded Oscars, there's news about two things out there today that will snag a bit of this aging geeks' money, so I thought I'd pass on what I know.

The first is that the Director's Cut for Zack Snyder's "Watchmen" should be a truly wild affair. It's set to come to DVD the third week of July or so, and if you're lucky enough to live in New York, L.A. and maybe a couple of other cities you will be able to see it in a theater for one weekend only right before that.

The flick will clock in at an admittedly rather ridiculous 188 minutes, but if you're like me and loved the movie almost as the funny book by Alan Moore, I think you'll happily sit through it all. No word yet on whether or not there will be a giant squid anywhere to be seen, but I do know that it will restore one scene that was just sorely missing from the theatrical cut: The murder of Hollis Mason. This is a very poignant moment in the comic, so it's about damn time.

Comingsoon.net also had a bit this morning about something from Zack Snyder that I can't say I'm terribly excited about: A sequel to "300."

Now, don't get me wrong, it certainly will look cool. But didn't "300" have a definite ending already? Frank Miller is apparently hard at work on the comic that would precede the movie, but personally, I'd much rather see what Snyder can come up with for "Sucker Punch." Though it sounds a whole lot like "Pan's Labyrinth," I'm betting his tale of a young woman who creates an alternative reality to escape from a mental institution will be nothing but cool.

The second thing that caught my eye this morning may well only appeal to me, but here goes anyway: They're actually making a Fraggle Rock comic book. Things just don't get much odder than that, but I'm definitely in.

It seem that the Jim Henson Company is partnering with Archaia Comics to release a whole bunch of comics, everything from "The Dark Crystal" to "Labyrinth," with "Fraggle Rock" set to start it all off. With Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller hopefully still working on a new muppet movie, we may be looking at a second golden age for Henson's creations, and that would be just fine with me.

But beyond what interests me, of course, the biggest news of the day is the Oscars' big gambit: To double the number of best picture nominees from five to 10.

The move, which sounds great to me, leads back to a much earlier era; The last the time the academy had 10 Best Picture nominees was from 1931 to 1943. But why now?

Well, both the most obvious and probably the right reason is what happened last year with "The Dark Knight." Many folks, though by only a nose, not me, thought Christopher Nolan's flick should have received a Best Picture nomination. And, to be clear, if I had had a vote and there were 10 slots, I indeed would have given one of them to "The Dark Knight."

But what might it mean for this year? Well, I think it almost certainly means that "Up" will finally break into the Best Picture pack, and given it's rather rapturous reception, could even come very close to winning. Beyond that, if geeks are allowed to dream, could "Star Trek" even make the cut too? Probably not, but you can see how the wider field opens a bunch of possibilities.

My only possible beef with any of this is that it will probably make the already unbearably long Oscar broadcast even longer. My suggestion: Cut, immediately, that extremely morbid bit where the audience offers dead folks varying degrees of applause. That just makes me cringe every time I see it.

But, of course, beyond expanding the field to a wider range of films, there is a bottom-line factor that plays big into this. Though they won't say it publicly, I'd imagine the ability to stamp "Best Picture nominee" on 10 DVDs rather than five each year had to play a big role in this decision.

So, there you have it. Please feel free to chime in with any thoughts you might have on all of this, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

My problem with 3-D, and a fantastic film opportunity in Macon

Just in case you thought there might be some end in sight to the 3-D wave of animation (and eventually, I fear, nearly everything else), there was an odd story this morning that shows just how much it's taken over just about the entire world.

It seems that even Frenchies like Patrice Leconte, director of one of my favorite froggy mind-benders in "The Man on the Train" and many other flicks, is getting into the 3-D animated game. Granted, he's making something called "Le Magasin des Suicides" (literally, "The Suicide Store"), a "dark comedy" about a family-owned shop that sells suicide tools to a depressed and suicidal world.

At least the story sounds interesting enough, but as much as I've tried, I just can't get into 3-D animation as anything more so far than a gimmick. I thought Pixar's "Up" would be the movie that finally gets me on board, but I think I can now officially count myself as someone who just doesn't believe the hype.

Now, there was one movie so far that I thought really made fantastic use of the technology, Henry Selick's "Coraline," but that's really it. Every other time I've seen a 3-D movie (and there's been at least "Up," "Monsters Vs. Aliens" and "Nightmare Before Christmas"), the supposed thrill just left me cold, and I think I've finally figured out (after discussing it with my fellow cubicle slave Randy Waters) why.

It's those glasses, which to me just make the whole screen muddy. A big part of the thrill in animated movies for me is to see the vibrant colors used to create something as beautiful as a painting. Think back to when Remy the rat first beheld the cityscape of Paris in "Ratatouille" or when Kiki was flying over Mediterranean Europe in Hayao Miyazaki's "Kiki's Delivery Service." I just can't imagine those unforgettable images would be as magical if they had been run through the 3-D machine.

And beyond the muddiness of the images, I just feel like it removes me from the experience by a level or two, putting this filter between me and the screen that just creates a remoteness that limits my engagement with the movie.

Now, even if I am an increasingly old curmudgeon about this and other things (I listened to the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" the other day to see if I could get into it, but I can't ... I love hip-hop and always will [listening to Dead Prez right now], but I just can't stand that vodaphone crap, another gimmick that just distorts the beauty that is rap music), I am sane enough to realize there's really nothing I can do about it. I was tempted to go back and watch "Up" in 2-D to see if I would enjoy it more, but decided to save my money instead.

But before I go any further on in that longer-than-expected tangent, this was supposed to be a plug for the Macon Film Guild, which is showing what I expect to be a truly great flick this Sunday in "Sugar."

It's been forever since I've seen a great baseball flick in a movie theater, so I was hoping that this one from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck would get a proper run, but it never materialized. I was bit underwhelmed by "Half Nelson," mostly because by the time I finally managed to see it the flick had been hyped so much that I was just expecting more, I guess.

With "Sugar," however, you can count me as thoroughly amped. The flick tells the story of Miguel "Sugar" Santos, a Dominican teenager who gets scouted as a pitcher and at 19 enters the U.S. minor league system with hopes of hitting it big.

The Macon Film Guild, which consistently shows quality flicks that should find more of an audience, is showing this one at 2, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Douglass Theatre in Macon, so if you're anywhere in the Middle Georgia area, come out and check it out, because it deserves a big crowd. If you're at the 2 p.m. show, I'll see you there.

And I'll leave you today with the first trailer I've seen for Martin Scorsese's next flick, "Shutter Island," which looks, thankfully, like it will be even crazier than I was hoping. Based on a Dennis Lehane novel, it of course stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a U.S. marshall who uncovers a nasty secret at a hospital for the criminally insane. It really looks like Scorsese making a B-movie, and almost a horror flick, and I can't possibly see anything wrong with that. Peace out.

Minority report: A slightly dissenting view of "Up"

Before I get into anything about Pixar's "Up," there's great news out there today about Duncan Jones, a k a David Bowie's son and the man who directed the best slice of old-fashioned sci fi I've seen this year, "Moon."

For his next project, Jones will direct "Escape From The Deep," the story of a World War II U.S. navy submarine that sank after a torpedo malfunction, leaving the crew stranded on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Faced with drowning, nine men made it out alive after swimming the 180 feet to the surface without getting the bends.

I love submarine movies, so that all sounds great to me, but I'm still more than a little peeved that "Moon," featuring a top-notch performance by Sam Rockwell, never got any proper distribution in the U.S. - definitely catch it on DVD as soon as it hits there.

But, getting back to "Up," I should probably just keep this to myself, because for the most part I enjoyed Pixar's latest offering almost as much as everyone else in the world has seemed to. However, I didn't find it to be top-shelf Pixar, which for me includes "Ratatouille," "The Incredibles," "Wall-E" and "Toy Story."

So then, what kept me from loving "Up" unconditionally, which I certainly wanted to do going in? Well, from the outset it's a much more somber affair than I had been led to believe, but that certainly wasn't the problem. In fact, it turned what could have been the most mediocre of montages into perfectly concise storytelling as it opened by telling the life story of Carl Fredricksen (a seriously curmudgeonly Ed Asner) in heartbreaking fashion (and I'm not afraid to admit it was the first, but not the last, time that "Up" had this grownass man on the verge of bawling.)

And if I can skip ahead to the big action climax, it's a set piece that has Carl and young Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai, who gets the movie's best line with his enthusiastic "But it's a talking dog!") battling the movie's big bad in an aerial encounter that finally delivers on the full promise of 3-D. It had me holding my breath and experiencing a serious fear of heights, and I'd imagine the real peril it puts our heroes in might be a bit much for the kiddies, but it's also just tons of fun.

So then, where's the beef? Well, to paraphrase Russell in talking about the middle of "Up," "But it's a flying house!" Watching it take off is indeed as remarkable as I could have expected, so I was just amazed at how little time they spent in the air before reaching their South American destination. I mean (AND THIS IS A BIG SPOILER, SO READ ON IF YOU DON'T WANT TO FIND OUT) really, having Russell almost instantly find it with his GPS device? Where's the adventure in that?

And once they're - sort of - tethered to the ground again, I was hoping for much more of a B-movie, Indy Jones sort of tale, but this part just never really got going, in large part because the big bad Charles Muntz, voiced by Christopher Plummer, was just one of the worst Pixar characters I've ever encountered. By having him stop well short of total madness, they also rob him of any real motivation and make this portion of the tale - in my opinion - just much less compelling.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on what is, after all, a kid's movie and a moving tale about one man reaching his life's aspirations. But this is Pixar, after all, and I've come to expect nothing short of perfection. And besides, like Carl Fredricksen, I guess I just like to complain, so please feel free to let me know all the ways I'm just off base on this one. Peace out.

Raimi's trip to "Hell" is a thoroughly disgusting delight

Going in to the great movie showdown that this weekend promised, I had two questions: Which movie would I prefer, Pixar's "Up" or Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell," and how in the world did Raimi's movie end up with less than a R rating?

Well, after having seen them both, I can definitively answer the first query: While I liked and more so admired "Up," Raimi's return to horror is the most fun I've had at the movies this year (edging out by a nose "Star Trek.")

As to the second, however, I still have no idea, because as any fans of "Evil Dead" would have been hoping, this flick is as juvenilely, eerily and blissfully disgusting as you could possibly expect. And give Raimi credit: With the most dead-on descriptive movie title since "Snakes on a Plane," there really shouldn't be anyone who goes into this one expecting anything less.

I'm not sure why, since they are such a natural combo, but humor and horror have been a very difficult concoction to blend in satisfying form in recent years. James Gunn did a fine job with "Slither" (did anyone else see that?) and Edgar Wright and co. do even better, but with both of these the laughs come first, whereas Raimi at his best, which he very nearly is here, delivers classic horror and finds the dark laughs within it. A litmus test: If seeing Alison Lohman stalk her pet with a kitchen knife as she coos "here kitty kitty" doesn't make you laugh, this movie isn't for you.

The movie opens with a great set piece that establishes immediately (in case the title left you with any doubt) what you're in store for. Two Hispanic parents take their cursed child to a healer of sorts. It seems the youngun has stolen a gypsy's necklace, never something I'd recommend, and, well, as you can probably imagine he doesn't fare too well from there.

It seems that the gypsies aren't a group of people you want to cross, and I have to confess that on a B-movie horror level, that just works for me. I think of myself as a solidly nonracist person, but if there's a chink in that armor, gypsies are it, because I once tried to sleep on a Eurorail train and had no less than four gypsy urchins come into my car and try to steal all of my belongings. Does that mean all gypsies are evil? Of course not. But it does, if suspending my nagging sensibilities, make me very susceptible to believing for about 90 minutes or so that they would be capable of unleashing something as nasty as the Lamia curse which, believe me, you don't want to get.

In Raimi's world, the star is Christine Brown, a very game Alison Lohman. Young Ellen Page was originally set to submit herself to this hell, but either chickened out (which I'd perfectly understand) or simply passed. What Lohman, who I had never seen in a movie before (but heard in "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind") brings to this schlockfest, along with a willingness to go through all kind of nastiness, is a nagging optimism that although you suspect is woefully misplaced, is enough to keep you playing Raimi's game until the end.

Her big mistake? Lohman's Christine, an ambitious bank loan officer (is there a more evil sort in the real world?), turns down an old lady for a third extension on her mortgage. And as anyone who knows even a bit about this flick knows, this was the wrong woman to piss off (and Lorna Raver, complete with an evil eye and secreting all kinds of squirm-inducing fluids even while she's still alive, is just the perfect choice.) From there, well, even if you think you know what's gonna happen, it's still a hell of a lot of fun going along for the ride.

And going in, I was fairly certain that funny guy and Mac pimper Justin Long was going to annoy me, but luckily he really doesn't have much to do here as Christine's supporting boyfriend (but his character's parents, played by Chelcie Ross and Molly Cheek, get the funniest scene of all, no small feat here.) What you need if you're gonna dine on this cheese buffet is someone who can lead you and Christine along, and Dileep Rao as psychic and all-around dark arts sensei Rham Jas certainly gets the job done. I don't want to give much else away, but Adriana Barraza is easily one of my favorite actresses (I even liked her quite a bit in the Jesus-wall-stain oddity "Henry Poole Is Here"), and when she turns up near the end of this flick (if you haven't walked out in disgust already) I guarantee you'll smile.

Raimi wraps it all up with an ending that's among his best, but what really makes this whole exercise so much fun is that, as with Raimi's "A Simple Plan," Christine, even as she makes mistake after mistake and suffers the requisite plagues for her misdeeds, is someone who - although more than a little greedy - we can easily all identify with.

In short, I loved just about every minute of Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell," and though it's not enough to erase the nightmare that was "Spider-Man 3" from my memory (really, nothing would be, because it truly was just that bad), it certainly shows Raimi's still capable of having a blast of wicked fun, and raises hopes that Spidey's fourth installment won't just suck hard. Peace out.

Friday morning links

Actually, the best news out there is that, with a revamped starting pitching staff and the best outfield in the American League, the Baltimore Orioles are now 6-1 in their last seven games. And, even better, supercatcher Matt Wieters finally makes his debut tonight against the Detroit Tigers.

With all this coming together, I can even see a .500 finish - poetically known in this corner as the "Run for 81" - in sight. Hey, one can dream, right?

And I'm almost as excited about the fact that this is clearly the best movie weekend of the year, even if it doesn't include Rian Johnson's "The Brothers Bloom." Because of my 10-10-10-5-5 (crazy, I know) schedule, I should be off of work by 4:30 or so today, and I'm gonna try and check out a screening of "Up!" for my supper.

I've been just as happy, though, to see that Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" has fared almost as well with the critics at Rotten Tomatoes - 98% for "Up" to 95% for "Drag Me to Hell" (actually, I looked through the six pages of reviews at RT to find the one splat for "Up" but couldn't find any ... I think they're just making it up.) It's clear that Sam Raimi is having fun again, and that we will too. For a great Raimi profile from the New York Times, click here (and the correction about the print headline is a hoot too ... that one had me scratching my head.)

But beyond that, here today it's about two sites I found recently that offer a little Friday morning time-wasting, the first way better than the second.

Anyone who's been here before knows that if there's a single upcoming movie I'm most obsessed with for the rest of this year, it would have to be Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are," and that really has nothing to do with all the ridiculous hoops that Warner Brothers has made Jonze and his crew jump through just to get it released.

From everything I've seen so far, they've managed to take my favorite childhood story and bring it to life with all its wild spirit intact. We won't get to see the final product until sometime in October, I believe, but just the trailers featuring that great Arcade Fire song "Wake Up" have been enough to get me thoroughly jazzed for this.

And now, the folks who are putting this together have started (well, it actually may have been going for sometime now already) a blog of sorts that's loosely about the movie, but moreso just about random thoughts that are always at least mildly diverting. The site, We Love You So, is well worth checking out, if for no other reason than right now, if you scroll down far enough, it contains a photo of a "Where the Wild Things Are" bento box. Yes, really.

Today's second site may simply be a bit of "viral marketing," but for that it is at least pretty clever. Judd Apatow's "Funny People," set to come out at the end of July, is certainly one of the summer movies I'm amped for, even if it seems like they did give away the entire plot in the trailer.

Though the main stars are Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen, the movie also features Eric Bana, Jonah Hill and a host of other hopefully "Funny People," including Jason Schwartzman, who this latest gimmick site is about.

His character in the movie, Mark Taylor, has a sitcom (or at least a pilot) on NBC called "Yo! Teach," so of course NBC has made a site devoted to it. The good news is that the three-minute-or-so clip on the first page is a pretty dead-on skewering of teacher sitcoms, and yes, that is indeed Roger from "What's Happening!!". Click here to check it out.

And, though I'm sure no one needs any incentive to go see "Up," I'll leave you with this clip introducing Doug the talking dog. Although "Ratatouille" will always be my favorite Pixar flick, I have a feeling this one will be right up there with "The Incredibles" competing for second place. Peace out.

You see, but you do not observe: A glimpse of "Sherlock Holmes"

Actually the best news out there today is further proof that, despite the ascendancy of a new generation and Barack Obama, there are still some areas in which grumpy old men, of which I'm rapidly becoming one, still rule the Earth.

In less than two weeks, of course, we get our own fantabulous 3-D animated feature with Pixar's "Up," but perhaps even better was today's announcement that this year's weeknight World Series games will start before 8 p.m., meaning that - even if my Orioles most likely won't have anything do with it - at least the games will hopefully wrap a little closer to my schoolnight bed time.

And best of all, the story I saw on this said Fox won't even take to the air before 7:30 p.m. Less than a half hour of inane Fox pregame (meaning, hopefully, no Steve Lyons, if he's indeed still there) and an earlier game time? I'm in heaven.

And I suppose the most "important" news out there today is that they're finally gonna do a biopic on Martin Luther King Jr. Not surprisingly, such a "prestige" and - in my book - "obligation" movie has attracted big fish Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg, so far as just a producer, but who knows?

The only way you could get me more than even mildly excited about this, however, is to cast the right dude as MLK. Don Cheadle would work OK, but for my money the slam-dunk choice would be Jeffrey Wright (oddly enough, Mos Def would be my second choice, and I actually saw them on stage together once in Suzan-Lori Parks' rather disappointing "Topdog/Underdog.")

You may remember that Wright has already played MLK Jr. once in a surprisingly entertaining but underrated HBO movie, "Boycott," also starring Terrence Howard as Ralph Abernathy and directed by "Homicide" and "The Wire" vet Clark Johnson. The only way to keep my interest in this going would be to bring him back for more.

The order of the day here, however, is supposed to be all about "Sherlock Holmes" and the case of its first theatrical trailer, with a little "Scott Pilgrim" thrown in at the end as a bonus.

When I first heard Guy Ritchie was gonna put his stamp on "Sherlock Holmes," I have to say I was more than a little worried. Now, don't get me wrong: "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and - to a lesser extent - "Snatch" are very funny flicks, but I'm not sure I'd call them clever in the vein of Holmes, and Ritchie's movies since then have been pretty much pure crap (with the possible exception of "RocknRolla," which I'm perfectly willing to concede I just didn't get.)

Beyond the tone, however, I also felt more than a little queasy when I heard rumors about them turning Holmes into some kind of Bond-style badass with exceptional fighting skills. That certainly wouldn't josh with any kind of Holmes I remember or ever want to see.

I suppose, though, with Robert Downey Jr. as our main man, I should have faith, and indeed this trailer does look pretty darn good. As everyone probably knows, Jude Law stars rather oddly as Watson, and as I just found out from the IMDB, Eddie Marsan of "Happy Go Lucky" fame stars as Inspector Lestrade. Enjoy the trailer, and feel free to check back for many more updates on this before it comes out Christmas day.



And, as a bonus of sorts, here's the latest installment of Edgar Wright's video blog about the making of "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World." The part of me that used to (and sometimes still does) read comic books has to admire the details that he and comic book writer Bryan Lee O'Malley are trying to recreate while filming in Toronto, but you also have to wonder how much any of that is going to matter to anyone beyond the most devoted subset of geeks (of which I still proudly consider myself one.) Anyways, enjoy this latest bit about the making of the flick set to star veryfunnyman Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and, as I just found out today, one of my favorite people in "Rocket Science" star Anna Kendrick. Peace out.

Blog Five - From Comic Book Panel to Screen - Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World from Scott Pilgrim The Movie on Vimeo.

It's Tuesday morning, so let the hate flow

I normally try not to get in the business of telling people not to see movies that I haven't and won't, but the fact there's only one this week - and what it is - just has me in a fairly cranky mood to start the day, so bear with me.

I always knew this week was going to be a hole in what otherwise is just a sensational month for movies. Already, of course, there's "Star Trek," which I'm almost certain to see again this weekend. Next week comes "Terminator: Salvation," for which you can count me thoroughly jazzed, and then Pixar's "Up" and Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" (but not, apparently, dammit, Rian Johnson "The Brothers Bloom.")

In between, however, all we get is "Angels & Demons." Now, for reasons I'll keep to myself, I will never, ever read a Dan Brown book or see one of his movies, but let me see if I have this plot summary right. After the Pope is murdered, the four Preferiti, or candidates to replace him, are also slain. Is this really anyone's idea of pleasant Summertime entertainment? Sheesh. Here's hoping against hope that this somehow makes a grand total of about $100 worldwide.

And, in the spirit of hating, which can actually be more than a little fun, here's a word or two about one I did see last weekend, so I guess you can call this a cautionary tale. Here goes:


I should have known "Next Day Air" was going to be a disaster when I saw it called, in separate places, both "the black Pineapple Express" and "the black Lock, Stock and Two Smokin' Barrels."

Now, I guess the bigger question would be why we would need either of those, but for right now, I can just tell you "Next Day Air" just falls miserable short of both. Not even Donald Faison, Wood Harris (Avon Barksdale on "The Wire") and Mos Def (who wisely only spends about five minutes total in this train wreck), all of whom I like a whole lot, were enough to give this flick either an ounce of comedic charm or dramatic urgency. Lacking both, it's a grim affair, and much more importantly, just incredibly boring. Avoid this one at all costs. I sure wish I had.

Actually, I guess just about everyone already has since it made a grand total of about $4 million. I give it one more week, and the filmmakers only have themselves to blame, because I really can't think of a movie I was looking forward to more that's just so completely lacking in anything that could even come close to being called entertainment value.

The premise, which I knew going in, can only generously be called tired. Faison, playing a spliffed-out delivery guy, delivers a package of narcotics to the wrong address. To that, the movie adds almost no comedy and really no further story, hence why it has no relation AT ALL to "Lock, Stock" and even less to "Pineapple Express." Debbie Allen shows up for about two minutes and tries very hard to be funny, as does Mos Def, but they both wisely bail very quickly. I guarantee that if you do somehow manage to see this, Mos' line in the commercial, "I like your outfit," is just about the only one that will make you even snicker.

And you can call me a devoted fan of "stylized violence," but the bullet ballet that closes out "Next Day Air" forgot one key element: Any kind of style. It just mercifully puts this instantly forgettable flick to bed in just under 90 minutes, which in my book amounts to a mercy killing. Peace out.

Read QT's script for "Inglorious Basterds"

What in the world did "Chuck" do to deserve this kind of treatment? No, it hasn't been canceled, but this limbo - which is expected to last perhaps until May 19 - is just the worst kind of excruciating.

According to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello, there was a mention of "Chuck" at yesterday's NBC "infronts," but it was far from anything definite. NBC's Ben Silverman simply said that if the show does indeed come back, it will most likely be moved away from Mondays.

Given how busy its time slot is now (with the CBS comedies, "Dancing With the Has-Beens" and "House" all up against it), I have to say that would probably be good news.

And if NBC does ultimately pass, which I really think would incur an outpouring of serious wrath, perhaps the makers of "Chuck" could secure a deal like that that was just inked for "The New Adventures of Old Christine." If CBS passes on a fifth season of that Julia Louis-Dreyfus comedy, ABC has already announced it will immediately scoop the show up, just as it did for NBC's "Scrubs." Kind of an interesting way to bypass creative development there.

However this sordid tale all ends, I'll be sure to let you know, but in the meantime I can share a bit of mostly good news in that the third season of "Mad Men" is definitely on, although it will come a bit later than usual. Though the show normally starts in July, this year it will be pushed back to an as-yet-announced date in August.

Either way, I'll just be happy when my second-favorite TV drama (edged out by less than a nose by "Friday Night Lights") is finally back on the air.

Here today, however, it's all about a tip my friend Randy Waters sent me, which at least purports to be the entire script for Quentin Tarantino's next flick, "Inglourious Basterds." And though I have no way of knowing for sure, I think it's the real deal.

Why? Well, the only solid reason is that the opening few pages match what was recently printed in Vanity Fair. And the other reason is that I'm simply a fairly gullible chap who wants to believe this.

I can't tell you yet if it's any good or not, since I've only read the first 10 pages or so thus far, but I just wanted to go ahead and pass it along to anyone else who might be interested. You can read it here.

I intend to read it all this weekend, and I'll certainly let you know then more of what I think of it. Randy, however, posed an interesting query: Do you really want to read a movie script before seeing the movie, and therefore - of course - possibly spoil things in a rather major way?

For me, if it's a movie I'm looking forward to as much as I am this one, the answer is always yes. I love everything about movies, especially seeing how they come together. With a writer as good as Tarantino, I'll thoroughly enjoy seeing the rough product and then just how much it changes when it finally hits the big screen.

And with that I'll close for today, leaving you with this latest clip from Pixar's "Up," courtesy of Hulu. Though May 29 was shaping up to be perhaps the greatest movie day of 2009 with this, Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" and Rian Johnson's "The Brothers Bloom" all coming out at once, it now looks like Johnson's flick may be released a bit earlier but only in a limited run (damnit!). Anyways, enjoy the clip, which introduces the talking dog, and have a perfectly passable Tuesday. Peace out.

Two great movie tidbits and my belated thoughts on "Chuck"

Before I get into my thoughts about the present and possible future of "Chuck," there's some great news out there today about easily two of my favorite people in film.

First and most importantly, according to the always informative Blackfilm.com, director Kasi Lemmons is solidly at work on an adaptation of the Langston Hughes gospel musical "Black Nativity," which as the title makes clear is a retelling of the nativity story with an all-black cast and featuring traditional carols sung in gospel style. Doesn't sound much like my kind of thing at all, but Ms. Lemmons has yet to steer me wrong, so I'm in (if you somehow haven't seen her first flick, "Eve's Bayou," rent it immediately.)

Fox Searchlight is apparently fasttracking this for, appropriately enough, a possible Christmas release this year.

And for fans of "short, fat, sweaty" people everywhere, there's big news about Ricky Gervais. Unbeknownst to me, he's apparently penned a series of children's books titled "Flanimals," and now they're being turned into a 3-D animated feature.

Now, I fully realize I have no power to stop the 3-D express, but I have to say my experiences with it so far have been mixed at best. It brought nothing at all to Henry Selick's "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and I also thought it was thoroughly wasted on "Monsters Vs. Aliens" (though, to be fair, I was so bored by that one that even fantastic 3-D effects wouldn't have been enough to suck me back in.) On the other hand, I thought it was mesmerizing with Selick's "Coraline," easily one of my favorite flicks so far of 2009, and I can't wait to see what Pixar does with the technology for "Up."

But getting back to the Gervais flick, it unfortunately won't be penned by Gervais himself, but instead by "The Simpsons" scribe Matt Selman ("The Simpsons" hasn't been funny for many years now, so that can't be a good sign.) The book series, according to Variety, is about "a world inhabited by 50 species of creatures so ugly and misshapen they become cute and endearing." And Gervais, who will voice a "pudgy, perspiring, purple creature," described the project with his signature self-deprecation.

"It will be great to play a short, fat, sweaty loser for a change," Gervais said. "A real stretch."

To that I can only say bring it on, but getting to easily the most important matter of the week (since I can't think of anything even remotely enlightening to say about the fact that people now have something actually called "pig flu"), a belated assessment of the season two finale (and hopefully not series finale!) of "Chuck." In a word, to quote one of our heroes, it was simply "awesome."

The "game-changing" punch that creator Josh Schwartz promised was certainly that, but I have to admit it wasn't what I was expecting. I was hoping that Chuck would have bitten on Gen. Beckman's offer early in the finale and become a real spy (she said analyst, but we knew he wouldn't simply be that) and he and Sarah could travel the world as partners and just kick all kinds of ass.

What Schwartz and co. came up with instead, however, promises to be at least as much fun for next season, which damn well better come to fruition. Chuck as a Kung Fu badass, as I at first understood it, would have been fun enough, but according to Schwartz in this interview with TV guide.com, the new and improved intersect in his head could lead to a whole new level of awesome:

TVGuide.com: These new flashes that give Chuck an ability, how long will each one last? Like, could he "forget" kung fu in the middle of a fight?
Schwartz: What I will say is that people who are concerned that these new powers will somehow change the tone of the show or of our guy, don't be. There is a plan in place, and the tone of the show and Chuck's underdog quality will remain intact.

TVGuide.com: Will he flash on, like, a foreign language one week? And then safe cracking skills the next? That kind of a thing?
Schwartz: There are a lot of options, a lot of opportunities for us to go down different paths.

That indeed just sounds radically cool. And I know there should be a lot more important things in life, and even in mine there certainly are, but I haven't gotten attached to a TV show so quickly in a very, very long time. I was admittedly a latecomer, only jumping on the ship early in season two at the urging of several of my entertainment-savvy co-workers, but now it's easily my favorite show that's still running original shows this year (which gives me an out to leave room for the only current shows I like more than "Chuck," coincidentally enough another little NBC offering known as "Friday Night Lights" and, of course, AMC's "Mad Men.")

But what about the most important question hovering around "Chuck"? I tried to find some ratings numbers for the finale or, even more importantly, info on when NBC might make up its mind about next season, but couldn't find anything solid. Here's what Schwartz had to say in the TV Guide interview, the rest of which you can read here:

TVGuide.com: But what is NBC thinking these days?
Schwartz: Well, NBC has always really loved the show. They have been very supportive of the show, and they really do love and support the show. It's not lost on them, the fan reaction, the critical support, and this grassroots movement that's taken hold. All of that is very significant in indicating momentum for the show, growth for the show, and a really loyal and fervent fan base for the show.

TVGuide.com: So you feel like it's a genuinely difficult decision NBC is facing?
Schwartz: They have a very tight schedule this year, so...

Really not much to go on there at all, so I guess we'll just have to wait. At the urging of fellow "Chuck" devotee Stephanie Hartley I did buy a footlong Subway sub recently, though I'm not sure what good that did beyond giving me a rather satisfying supper.

My good friend Kaori Sekine-Pettite sent me a link via Facebook (which I'm somehow on, though I still don't even have a cell phone) that lets you make your own Buy More Nerd Herd badge, which I of course just couldn't resist. I certainly hope Chuck, Casey and even Morgan somehow end up working there next year, and in spirit I can too. If you want to enjoy this perfectly blissful little time-waster, click here, and keep hope very much alive for the future of "Chuck." Peace out.

Cannes lineup: Clash of the Titans + the opening of "The Brothers Bloom" "

Though I've thoroughly enjoyed the Atlanta Film Festival 365 and look forward to returning to it tomorrow, there's really just nothing better for daydreaming than imagining spending two weeks or so sunning in the south of France and just watching movies.

Well, I can't deliver you that, of course, but here to perhaps set your mind reeling to far-flung locales are the highlights (as I see it) of the just-announced lineup for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival (the "L'Avventura"-themed poster for which is at right), which kicks off May 13 with the opening night screening of Pixar's "Up" (not too shabby a starting point.)

In the competition, I can't imagine it will win, but the big, loud dog in the room who will attract the most attention will almost certainly be Quentin Tarantino's World War II flick "Inglourious Basterds," assuming he finishes it on time, of course. I don't think he's gonna get hissed like poor Sofia Coppola did a few years ago with "Marie Antoinette," but the reaction to any movie in which Eli Roth is decapitating Nazis with a baseball bat should be fascinating.

Also on the domestic front, Ang Lee will be in competition with "Taking Woodstock," a biographical comedy starring Comedy Central's Demetri Martin as Elliot Tiber, who played a key role in launching the hippie fest. I have a feeling this one will just be goofy as hell but, assuming its get any of proper distribution, I could also easily see it becoming the sleeper hit of the summer.

If I were on the jury or even somehow just in attendance, though, the single competition movie I'd most be looking forward to is Park Chan-wook's vampire movie, "Thirst" Among other crazy things, as far as I can tell, it's about a priest who goes to Africa to participate in a medical experiment but instead, of course, finds himself turned into a bloodsucker. Bring it on! In the same vein (get it?), Sam Raimi will be screening his return to "real horror," "Drag Me to Hell," as a midnight movie, and one I'd certainly stay up well past my school night bed time for.

Joining Tarantino, Lee and Chan-wook will be a lot of heavy hitters, starting with Pedro Almodovar's "Broken Embraces." I know his movies are, well, often extremely gay, but I've always just loved them, and this one - apparently an homage to filmmaking with a puzzling plot and, thankfully, Penelope Cruz - just sounds like a real winner.

Michael Haneke will begin his path of atonement for that "Funny Games" trailer that I must have had the misfortune of seeing 150 times (or at least it certainly felt like it) with his new feature film, "The White Ribbon," about which I know nothing more than that. Also on the prestige front will be the U.K.'s Angry-but-not-so-young-man Ken Loach with "Looking for Eric," which sounds like a surprising amount of fun. Described as a movie about "football fanatics and life," it's apparently about a football-mad postman who gets life advice from Eric Cantona. Wild.

Jane Campion will return with "Bright Star," a suitably high-minded tale about the poet John Keats and his affair with the girl next door, and I can only imagine Lars von Trier will be stirring up all kinds of trouble with something simply called "Antichrist."

And though this has probably gone on well long enough, it's certainly worth mentioning one last oddity, Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus," which is screening out of competition and still, rather amazingly, looking for a U.S. distributor. If you've got a movie you can market as Heath Ledger's last that also just happens to star Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell but you still can't get any real distribution, you've either got to have something simply awful or just extremely bizarre. My guess? A mix of the two, tilted to the latter, but either way I can't wait to see this one if I ever get the chance.

The first seven minutes of "The Brothers Bloom"

Anyone who sat through all that certainly deserves a reward, and anyone who's been here before (there are amazingly at least a few of you) knows that I've already christened Rian Johnson's con-men flick "The Brothers Bloom" as the single movie I'm most looking forward to for all of 2009 (nothing like a little hyperbole to start the day, but I'm serious here.)

Knowing it comes from the creator of "Brick" (rent that one already!) and stars Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz and Rinko Kikuchi in a good, old-fashioned con game was enough to get me hooked, and now the first seven minutes - which you can watch below courtesy of the glorious Hulu - just have me salivating for when this finally opens (hopefully very wide!) May 29 against the aforementioned "Drag Me to Hell" and "Up." As expected, the opening sequence, narrated by Ricky Jay, is just a treat to watch, and in spirit it reminds me a lot of Wes Anderson's "Bottle Rocket," never a bad reference point in my book. Enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Thursday. Peace out.

The joys of summer: Ten (or maybe 13) flicks I'm really looking forward to

Actually, the most important thing happening possibly today for fans of great television is that DirecTV and NBC are expected to announce whether or not they've come to an agreement for a fourth and fifth season of "Friday Night Lights."

Now, I know I talk about this show a whole lot, but you'll just have to believe me that it's that good. It's the best TV drama since "The Wire," and in the interest of full disclosure, it routinely comes very close to making this grownass man cry at its most touching moments.

If you've missed out on the ride thus far, it's easy to catch up, and free too. I was rather amazed to find you can watch the first two seasons and the second half of the current one on Hulu, so I encourage anyone to give it a try.

The final decision, of course, will come down to money, specifically how much DirecTV is willing to pay to air the shows before they hit NBC. I'll definitely pass on what I hear as soon as I can, but here today it's all about summer, and what's in the movie pipeline.

There's actually some pretty good stuff coming before summer, which for argument's sake will start in May, including this week Greg Mottola's "Adventureland" and - if you live in a bigger city than me - "Sunshine Cleaning" and Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's baseball flick "Sugar," and next week Jody Hill's "Observe and Report." For a look at what comes after those that intrigues me, here goes (and please forgive any misspellings, because the Blogger spell check just wouldn't work this morning):

May 21: Terminator Salvation

I really had little to no interest in this one until I saw the latest trailer, but am now fairly convinced that McG will cook up something both genuinely gritty and fun with it. McG? Yes, McG.

May 29: Three definitely worth waiting for

The Brothers Bloom: Memorial day weekend will probably be the single best movie weekend of 2009 if Rian Johnson's sophomore flick actually manages to play wide enough to reach my little corner of the world. It was originally supposed to come out late last year, and I've certainly been ready to see this con man flick starring Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz and Rinko Kikuchi since then.



Drag Me to Hell: If anyone short of Sam Raimi were promising a return to "real horror" I'd probably just laugh and move on, but judging from the trailer above I think he's come up with exactly that. If you hooked her up to a lie detector I bet Ellen Page would reveal she regrets passing on the lead in this tale of an old woman's rather nasty curse and handing the role to Alison Lohman.

Up: Having seen just last weekend what 3D can do in the wrong hands, being thoroughly bored from start to finish by Dreamworks' "Monsters Vs. Aliens," I can't wait to see it used for the forces of good again by Pixar. Everything I've seen and heard about this tale of an adventurous septuagenarian (Ed Asner) and his flying house says it's gonna be yet another Pixar winner.

June 19

Whatever Works: After countless years of casting his muse of the moment, Woody Allen has finally looked in the mirror and turned to a cranky old man as the lead in this one, and thankfully it's veryfunnyman Larry David. Here's hoping the success of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (my favorite comedy of 2009) means this return to NYC for Mr. Allen will play very wide.



Year One: As you can see from the trailer above, the humor in this Harold Ramis flick will be extremely broad but hopefully also on the mark. Jack Black and Michael Cera play the leads in this biblical laugher, which Ramis promises was made in the spirit of Monty Python. I have my doubts, but bring it on so we can find out.

July 1: Public Enemies

Having tried it out on one of my Johnny Depp-obsessed co-workers when she was having a particularly bad day, I can attest that there's just something extremely therapeutic about seeing him tote a tommy gun. Christian Bale will be the lawman who pursues Depp's John Dillinger in Michael Mann's flick, and you've also got Marion Cotillard as Dillinger's mol and Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover, which all sounds pretty great to me.

July 10: Bruno

I'm not sure I'm ready for more of Sacha Baron Cohen's antics, but I laughed through just about every minute of "Borat," so I'll give him another shot. Besides, early word is that his exploits as the Austrian fashion reporter Bruno are at least as outrageous as anything he came up with the first time out, so it should at least never be boring.

July 17: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

It will be interesting to see if Harry Potter mania will still be running strong after such a long layoff. Given what director David Yates did with "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and that this installment is easily my favorite of the books, I'm betting this one will be both a critical and box-office winner.



July 31: Funny People

As you can see from the trailer above (which reveals perhaps too much of the flick's story), there's a whole lot more than stand-up comedy going on in this Judd Apatow movie starring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen. Given how often we hear the "Freaks and Geeks" creator's name nowadays, it's surprising (to me, at least) that this will be only the third flick he's actually directed, preceded by "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" (the far superior of the two).

August 7: Julie and Julia

Far too girly for the heat of August, perhaps, but when you've got Meryl Streep and adorable Amy Adams in a movie that's all about food, I'm there. Streep will play master chef Julia Child and Adams a woman who decides to cook her way through Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year's time in her small kitchen. Sounds like nothing but fun to me.



August 14: Taking Woodstock

Out of some odd misguided loyalty to Dave Chappelle I've thus far resisted watching Comedy Central's latest sketch comedy star, Demetri Martin, but I'm beginning to think I'm really missing out on something good. Should I give in? As you can see from the trailer above, Mr. Martin also plays the lead role of Elliot Tiber in Ang Lee's flick about the famed hippie fest, which looks like it will be as simply silly as it is hopefully entertaining.

August 21: Inglourious Basterds

We finish, fittingly enough, with Quentin Tarantino's version of a World War II flick, assuming he actually both finishes it in time and decides to cut it enough to release it as only one movie. After watching Eli Roth removing a Nazi's head with a baseball bat I have serious doubts that this will be any good, but I'll definitely be there to see how it all turns out.

And there you have it. There are also certainly some pending blockbusters ("GI Joe", "Star Trek" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" among them) that simply don't interest me all that much, but if there are any other summer flicks I've omitted but should put on my radar, certainly let me know, and have a perfectly passable Monday. Peace out.

Quick hits: A trailer two-fer and ... Hitler!?!?

Not much to say today, since I'm off to the gym in just a few minutes and then on to watch "Watchmen" in Imax!

I did, however, take a few seconds to scan the 'Net this morning, and found a few things well worth passing on. The first is the theatrical trailer for "Up," and the first clip from Pixar's next flick that really shows what we're in for. I was already psyched for this, but now you can count me as completely hooked.



The second is a little odd, but no less enjoyable. Remember Jim Jarmusch? It seems like forever since he made his last feature film, "Broken Flowers," and it has indeed been four years. Now he's back with something called "The Limits of Control." As you can see from the trailer below, it stars Isaach de Bankole, who I've loved ever since he played the ice cream man in Jarmusch's "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai." In this new flick, he plays a mysterious loner involved in some kind of criminal operation in Spain. That's all I know for now, but it's certainly nice to see Mr. Jarmusch back, no matter what he's cooking up.



And, finally, the truly odd. I'm not usually one for jokes about Hitler, but whoever put this together is indeed at least a minor genius. Who would have guessed the fuhrer was a fanboy? If you haven't seen "Watchmen" yet or don't want to know how the graphic novel or movie end, don't watch this clip, but if you're cool with that and don't mind squinting at some tiny subtitles, I guarantee this will make you laugh out loud at least once. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant weekend. Peace out.

Enter the enchanting world of "Coraline"

Before seeing Henry Selick's rather amazing "Coraline," I was convinced that 3-D, be it in movies or television, was simply a gimmick to catch our extremely short attention spans for a few seconds. Now, however, at least when it comes to animation, you can count me as a true believer.

Actually, I was caught up in the magic of it even before the movie started, when for the first time I got to see the trailer for Pixar's next flick, "Up," for the first time in 3-D. It looks amazing, and I'm betting it will easily be one of this summer's best movies.

As for "Coraline" itself, this was only the second time I had bothered to don those goofy glasses (the first, oddly enough, being for another flick associated with Selick, the re-release of "The Nightmare Before Christmas"), and this was the first time that the 3-D effect felt perfectly organic to the story and only added to the world it was painstakingly used to create.

But as amazing as the stop motion animation/puppetry was, it all would have felt more than a little empty if it weren't for the strength of the story, adapted by Selick from the children's novella by Neil Gaiman with healthy doses of "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland," "The Wizard of Oz" and "Pan's Labyrinth" thrown in as inspiration.

Like Ophelia in Guillermo Del Toro's flick, our heroine Coraline constructs an elaborate fantasy world to escape the reality of her surroundings, here simply an old house in the middle of nowhere rather than the Spanish Civil War. In exploring her new abode, Coraline discovers a small door that's been painted over and, once opened, reveals in reality only another layer of bricks.

It's once she drifts off to sleep, however, that magical mice lead her through the door to an alternate universe in which she encounters an "other mother" and "other father" who, as opposed to her benign but somewhat neglectful real folks, offer her all the thrills that her own mind can conjure, plus some creepy creations that make this about as close as you can come to a horror movie for children (and not-yet-grown-up adults like me.)

I don't want to reveal any more than that about the story, but it's in this alternative universe that Selick's stable of animators/puppeteers get to really shine, most magically in Mr. Bobinsky's (voiced by Ian McShane) circus of bouncing mice (which you have to see to believe), but also in a pack of Scottie dogs who turn into bats at Coraline's command. Perhaps the most inane thing I've read in the past year was a debate at Aint It Cool News over whether these rather amazing mice were a feat of animation or simply CGI gimmickry; if you can't simply sit back and behold the visual feast that unfolds in front of you, I have to wonder why you go to the movies in the first place.

Selick/Gaiman's tale starts to unravel a bit as Coraline's dream world becomes more of a nightmare, but even here it's kept afloat as the vision of our young heroine, voiced with surprising spirit by Dakota Fanning (who, frankly, until she becomes a young adult instead of a kid trying desperately to be one, is better heard but not seen in my book, hence I won't be going to see her play an alcoholic in "Push" this weekend.) I loved watching her use the everyday objects around her to construct her elaborate fantasy world and the fact that as impudent as young Coraline can often be, the single thing that appears to irk her the most is that people in the real world too often address her as "Caroline."

In case you can't tell by now, I rather unconditionally loved this flick, and it was only after taking off those goofy glasses and returning to my own reality that I began to wonder just who this movie was intended for. Enchanting enough for kids but perhaps a tad too scary, it's probably aimed mostly at grown-up geeks like me, and I'm not sure that's enough of an audience to make this anything approaching a box-office winner.

In fact, a quick visit to Box Office Mojo revealed that on Friday it took in a respectable-but-not-great haul of about $4.5 million, far behind the $10.5 million or so of "He's Just Not That Into You" but thankfully a full million ahead of Steve Martin's latest attempt to crap all over the career of Peter Sellers.

My advice is simply that if you like going to the movies to escape for a little while and be thoroughly enchanted by a movie that's as visually stunning as it is simply entertaining, go see "Coraline," and if you can, certainly see it in 3-D. Peace out.

Demko's DVD shelf: The wonder of "Wall-E" and the future of Pixar

Actually, the coolest news I could find out there this morning is that Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, who crafted the simply splendid Harvey Pekar bio "American Splendor," are now about to give the same treatment to Sam Kinison for HBO.

The duo are adapting the Kinison bio "Brother Sam" for Tom Shadyac (who, yes, has "Patch Adams" on his resume) to direct and Dan Folger (star of "Balls of Fury") to play Kinison. Folger can be a pretty annoying presence on screen, but, frankly, so could Kinison, and having seen Folger in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" I can attest he can be a genuinely funny guy, so keep your eyes on this one.

But here today, however, it's about this week's DVDs and - more specifically - the wonder of "Wall-E." Looking back on my mid-year movie report, I had "Wall-E" fifth out of 10, not exactly a stellar rating giving that "Ratatouille" was my single favorite movie of all of 2007. I stand by that, but I will concede that, just as froggy director Guillaume Canet's "Tell No One" has delivered the best closing 30 minutes or so of this year with its amazing reveal, the first third of "Wall-E" is easily the best beginning to any movie of this year.

Watching our hero go through his daily routine and seeing robo-love slowly unfold with the tempestuous Eve (or, as he says, Ev-a) was without exaggeration magical. Here's what I had to say in my original review:

As corny as this certainly sounds, if you've seen Pixar's "Wall-E" (and if you haven't, why the heck not?), can you think of any movie in any genre for the last 20 years or so that had more to say about the power of love?

Well, robot love, of course, but the story of Wall-E and Eve still just grabs you faster and keeps you fully attached longer than almost any love story that I can think of (some might mention "The Notebook," but for simple entertainment value and much more, "Wall-E" just blows that away.)

It does lose a bit of steam as the movie slowly gets more and more conventional, but Andrew Stanton has still crafted a real charmer worth picking up on DVD. And more on Pixar coming in just a bit, but first two more DVD picks this week.

"Tropic Thunder"

When it comes to comedy, I have a broad range of likes, from the sweet (Woody Allen's "Vicky Christina Barcelona" and Peter Sollett's "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" have lasted as two of my favorites from this year) to the truly crude.

In the latter category, there have been two truly tasteless moments in 2008 that I have to admit just made me howl. One is the anal sex joke that comes near the end of Kevin Smith's mostly satisfying "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" (which you won't hear any more about here since this is still linked from a family-friendly newspaper) and the other is Robert Downey Jr.'s "full retard" speech in "Tropic Thunder."

I just assumed that, given how much he appeared in the trailer, the best of his jokes as the black-faced method actor Kirk Lazarus were revealed there, but for once I was wrong. It's worth at least renting "Tropic Thunder," especially if you haven't seen it, for his retard speech alone, but there's also plenty of more crude capers (and more than a bit too much Jack Black), plus the rather funny mockumentary "Rain of Madness" to boot.

"Monty Python Holy Trinity"

I'm ashamed to say I own only one of these movies, "Monty Python's Life of Brian," on DVD. That one has just always had a special place in my heart, I think because amazingly enough I first watched it at a meeting of our Episcopal church youth group. Blasphemy, but not really all that harmful, methinks.

This week, for the rather reasonable price of $29.99 at Amazon, you get that flick packaged with the classics "Monty Python's Meaning of Life" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" with extras in a six-disc set. Not sure I can spring for it now - with Christmas coming up and all - but I have a feeling I will at some point in the fairly near future.

More on Pixar, present and future

I'll close today with a couple of clips. The first is "Burn-E," the Pixar short you'll get if you spring for "Wall-E" on DVD. It uses a lot of "Wall-E" in sharing the exploits of the welding robot, but the moment when he hangs his head in shame is just pretty cool.



Second comes the second trailer for Pixar's next flick, "Up," which rather ominously uses the first minute or so to simply extol the virtues of Pixar flicks past. Once it gets going we do get see our septuagenarian super hero (voiced by Ed Asner) and his flying house (ring any bells? I know there aren't that many original thoughts left at this point, but it would seem this steals rather directly and recently from Hayao Miyazaki!) Anyways, enjoy the trailer, and have a perfectly pleasant Tuesday.